Friday 27 August 2010

27/8: Wenlock and Mandeville on the move

News today of some mascot pins with movement!!

Both Wenlock and Mandeville are appearing on sliding and spring pins. The spring pins move gently when you press them and the sliding ones, well, slide! All 4 pins are issued on 6th September and each is limited to 10,000 and have a recommended retail price of £6

No word yet on who will be selling them on launch.

Pin 0240 - Spring Wenlock
Pin 0241 - Spring Mandeville
Pin 0242 - Sliding Wenlock
Pin 0243 - Sliding Mandeville

Wednesday 25 August 2010

25/8: Museum of London Stock Update and 'Sold Out' Pins

Museum of London
An update from MoL today. They now have the 6 Countryside pins in-store along with the 4 Winter Flowers and the Paralympic Pride pin. Don't forget there are only 2,012 of the latter, so they are one of the

All of these pins are only available in store and not on the website.
At the time of writing, this is the first retailer to have the Countryside pins.

Sold Out Pins
As collectors, we like to know when a limited edition has sold out, so with Honav's help, I have updated the inventory to show when a pin has been sold out. My definition of this is that Honav have no more stock to supply the retailers. It doesn't mean that one or more retailers may not have the pin on their shelves or in their stockroom, but it does indicate that a pin MAY be harder to find. I'm sure that as we get nearer to the Games some of the limited editions will start to become rarer in the shops.
At the moment, the pins that are sold out are the 3 YTG, 2YTG and the 2 Mascot pins in the boxed set - no surprises really.

Monday 23 August 2010

23/8: Mandeville Pins Announced

Honav announced 2 more Mandeville pins which will be released on Sunday as part of the 2 Year To Go milestone for the Paralympic Game. The 2 pins announced today are a 'buckle' or drop pin version and a printed version which both compliment their Wenlock counterparts.

Pin 0239 - Buckle Pin
Pin 0245 - Printed Pin

Both pins are limited to 20,000 and recommended retail is £5 and £4 respectively. They'll both be available from Sunday and should be available from the online shop, the St Pancras shop and the Museum of London.

I think we should also see pin 233 available on Sunday too. This pin is limited to 5,000 and was originally available to LOCOG staff only. The Wenlock version of this pin went on sale to the public at the Olympic 2YTG mark, so there's every reason to expect to see the Mandeville pin available this weekend.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

18/8: More Flowers

The final set of flower pins have been announced today. The Spring flowers are Bluebell, Cowslip, Daffodil and Violet. They are all limited to 5,000 and the recommended price is £6. No word yet when they'll be in the shops.
0076 - Bluebell
0077 - Cowslip
0078 - Daffodil
0079 - Violet



Tuesday 17 August 2010

17/8: Catalogue Updates

There have been a few updates to the catalogue this evening...

  • New partner pins from Airwave, Cisco and Panasonic
  • New internal pins from LOCOG and the ODA plus some updated images
  • All the regional pins are now shown - some have not been issued but there are images of the samples
  • Updated issue sizes for some of the recent internal and partner issues (e.g. Adidas, BT, BMW etc.)
Thanks to the team at Honav for providing access to the new pins and also for the technical information.


17/8: Panasonic Pin Competition

Towards the end of 2009, Panasonic ran a competition amongst its employees (and families I guess) to design a corporate pin for London 2012. The competition was won by Edward Yeo, son of Stephen Yeo, a Panasonic employee. Click here for a news article about the competition.

Here is the pin Edward designed. 750 of these have been produced and issued to all UK staff in July.


As well as producing the pin, Panasonic and Honav also produced a pin containing Edward's drawing. Congratulations to Edward for winning the competition and having what is surely the rarest London 2012 pin!

17/8: Museum of London Update

I was at the Museum of London yesterday and had a chat with them regarding their pin plans for the rest of the year. It looks like they'll be stocking most of the pins as they become available and hope to have more on their website in the coming months. This is especially true where there's a London theme or tie-in. They had the 10 new London Landmark pins for sale, and by now you will have probably received an email from them advising they're available online. For those of you not in or around London, this is the first chance you will have had to get the set.

For those of you who aren't already on the Museum's mailing list, I'd advise signing up atshop@museumoflondon.org.uk.

Remember also, that just because a pin is not on their website or on display in the shop, it doesn't mean they can't supply it. For example, they have the London Borough pins available for sale even though they're not advertised.



And finally, for those of you who haven't got your 2 Year to Go pins yet, even though they're sold out in both the London 2012 online and St Pancras shops, the Museum still have a limited number for sale.

Friday 6 August 2010

6/8: Countryside Pins

News of a range of 6 pins that were announced today. The Countryside pins are a set of 6 limited to 3,000 of each. No word on dates or prices at the moment. The six pins show elements of the British countryside such as brambles, a butterfly, daffodils, a sheep, a squirrel and a stile.



Thursday 5 August 2010

5/8: New Mascot Pins

I received the 2 latest Wenlock pins today. The first (0238) is a 'dangler'. Wenlock is suspended under a small orange 2012 logo. It's a lovely pin and I like the movement.


The other pin (0244) is the standard Wenlock pose, but rather than using the more traditional pin manufacture techniques, this one is printed (front and back). The pin is much smaller than the norm and, due to the smaller dimensions and method of production, is much lighter than the rest. The back too is printed. The pattern and information box is there, but not engraved. Personally, I hope that we don't see too many of this type of pin as it lacks the substance of the rest of the pins to date. We've seen this type of production with the UPS sponsor pins.


Another thing to notice with this pin is that there is no principal 2012 logo on it. There is one on Wenlock's chest, but it's not that large and distinctive. It's almost as if the mascot is the 'identifier' that indicates London 2012 rather than the logo.

Both of these pins came on a new type of backing card. I'm calling this version 3 in the inventory. Size-wise it's the same as version 2, but now the colouring and styling matches the packaging of other items of merchandise such as the key rings and magnets. Personally I like the new look. Read more about the packaging on the pinbacks page of the website.

4/8: First Coca-Cola London 2012 Pin Appears


Some of you may have already seen this, but it looks like the first, of what I'm sure will be hundreds, of the Coca-Cola pins has appeared on eBay (click here to view the auction). As they are a major player in pins and pin trading, I thought the fist 'Coke' pin was worth a mention.

This pin was issued as part of the 2 YTG milestone, but no word on where or when - did anyone see these on the day at any events?



What I find most interesting though is that this pin was made by Honav (it's number COC0001). I wonder if they will be making all the Coca-Cola pins or maybe, like Visa,some will be made under Honav's licence and some under whatever worldwide licence Coca-Cola have.

Also, it's worth noting that there's wording on the back 'produced from partly recycled material' - this first time we've seen this green message on a pin for 2012.